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1.
Linking Physical Activity to Breast Cancer via Sex Hormones, Part 1: The Effect of Physical Activity on Sex Steroid Hormones.
Swain, CTV, Drummond, AE, Boing, L, Milne, RL, English, DR, Brown, KA, van Roekel, EH, Dixon-Suen, SC, Lynch, MJ, Moore, MM, et al
Cancer epidemiology, biomarkers & prevention : a publication of the American Association for Cancer Research, cosponsored by the American Society of Preventive Oncology. 2022;(1):16-27
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Abstract
The effect of physical activity on breast cancer risk may be partly mediated by sex steroid hormones. This review synthesized and appraised the evidence for an effect of physical activity on sex steroid hormones. Systematic searches were performed using MEDLINE (Ovid), EMBASE (Ovid), and SPORTDiscus to identify experimental studies and prospective cohort studies that examined physical activity and estrogens, progestins, and/or androgens, as well as sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG) and glucocorticoids in pre- and postmenopausal women. Meta-analyses were performed to generate effect estimates. Risk of bias was assessed, and the GRADE system was used to appraise quality of the evidence. Twenty-eight randomized controlled trials (RCT), 81 nonrandomized interventions, and six observational studies were included. Estrogens, progesterone, and androgens mostly decreased, and SHBG increased, in response to physical activity. Effect sizes were small, and evidence quality was graded moderate or high for each outcome. Reductions in select sex steroid hormones following exercise supports the biological plausibility of the first part of the physical activity-sex hormone-breast cancer pathway. The confirmed effect of physical activity on decreasing circulating sex steroid hormones supports its causal role in preventing breast cancer.See related reviews by Lynch et al., p. 11 and Drummond et al., p. 28.
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2.
Sex Bias in Differentiated Thyroid Cancer.
Suteau, V, Munier, M, Briet, C, Rodien, P
International journal of molecular sciences. 2021;(23)
Abstract
Differentiated thyroid cancers are more frequent in women than in men. These different frequencies may depend on differences in patient's behavior and in thyroid investigations. However, an impact on sexual hormones is likely, although this has been insufficiently elucidated. Estrogens may increase the production of mutagenic molecules in the thyroid cell and favor the proliferation and invasion of tumoral cells by regulating both the thyrocyte enzymatic machinery and the inflammatory process associated with tumor growth. On the other hand, the worse prognosis of thyroid cancer associated with the male gender is poorly explained.
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Bidirectional Interactions between the Menstrual Cycle, Exercise Training, and Macronutrient Intake in Women: A Review.
Rocha-Rodrigues, S, Sousa, M, Lourenço Reis, P, Leão, C, Cardoso-Marinho, B, Massada, M, Afonso, J
Nutrients. 2021;(2)
Abstract
Women have a number of specificities that differentiate them from men. In particular, the role of sex steroid hormones and the menstrual cycle (MC) significantly impact women's physiology. The literature has shown nonlinear relationships between MC, exercise, and nutritional intake. Notably, these relationships are bidirectional and less straightforward than one would suppose. For example, the theoretical implications of the MC's phases on exercise performance do not always translate into relevant practical effects. There is often a disconnect between internal measures (e.g., levels of hormone concentrations) and external performance. Furthermore, it is not entirely clear how nutritional intake varies across the MC's phases and whether these variations impact on exercise performance. Therefore, a thorough review of the existing knowledge could help in framing these complex relationships and potentially contribute to the optimization of exercise prescription and nutritional intake according to the naturally occurring phases of the MC. Throughout this review, an emerging trend is the lack of generalizability and the need to individualize interventions, since the consequences of the MC's phases and their relationships with exercise and nutritional intake seem to vary greatly from person to person. In this sense, average data are probably not relevant and could potentially be misleading.
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4.
Human Follicle in vitro Culture Including Activation, Growth, and Maturation: A Review of Research Progress.
Yang, Q, Zhu, L, Jin, L
Frontiers in endocrinology. 2020;:548
Abstract
Fertility preservation has received unprecedented attention nowadays. In addition to cryopreservation and re-implantation of embryos, oocytes, and ovarian tissue pieces, in vitro culture system for follicles/oocytes has been considered as an alternative strategy for fertility preservation. Since the metabolic dynamics and required nutrients are not entirely the same in different stages of follicular development, optimization of each culture step is needed. In this paper, literature regarding culture conditions in three steps were analyzed. Known additives in activation stage included 740Y-P, bpV(HOpic), follicle stimulating hormone (FSH), human serum albumin (HSA), ITS, growth differentiation factor 9 (GDF9), bone morphogenetic protein 15 (BMP15), and cyclic adenosine monophosphate (cAMP), with different degrees of activation promotion and potential detrimental effect on DNA integrity. For isolated follicles growth stage, actin A, FSH, basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF), estradiol were proved to improve development or proliferation. As for maturation, addition of growth hormone, melatonin, C-type natriuretic peptide (CNP), GDF9, cilostamide, or forskolin helped to regulate maturation rate or improve oocyte quality. Based on previous sequential culture system for human follicles, optimization is needed to achieve higher maturation rate and better oocyte quality, pursuant to current review, which demonstrated the effects of various additives on different stages.
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5.
Effects of nutrition and hormones on functional appliance treatment outcome in patients with skeletal Class II malocclusion.
Zhang, X, Yi, J, Li, Y
Journal of the World federation of orthodontists. 2020;(1):9-12
Abstract
BACKGROUND Functional appliances has been used for treatment of skeletal Class II malocclusion for a long time; however, the real skeletal effects, mandibular growth particularly, remain insufficient. Several auxiliary approaches have been attempted with the hope of enhancing treatment effects. In this review, we summarize and discuss the use of additional nutrition and hormones to assist the functional appliance treatment on patients with skeletal Class II malocclusion. METHODS Relevant articles were identified by electronic research in MEDLINE Ovid using keywords such as "nutrition," "hormone," "functional appliance," "orthodontics," "maxillofacial development," and "maxillofacial abnormalities." References of related articles were assessed for relevant studies to identify additional published references. RESULTS The literature search yielded 239 studies. According to the current literature, use of additional nutrition and hormones, including growth hormones, sex hormones, insulin, and insulin-like growth factor I, seem to improve the effects of functional appliance treatment on patients with skeletal Class II malocclusion. CONCLUSIONS The current evidence indicates that additional nutrition or hormones might improve the treatment effects on mandibular hypoplasia compared with the functional appliance alone, which is a promising approach and calls for further studies.
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Steroidogenic Acute Regulatory Protein: Structure, Functioning, and Regulation.
Tugaeva, KV, Sluchanko, NN
Biochemistry. Biokhimiia. 2019;(Suppl 1):S233-S253
Abstract
Steroidogenesis takes place mainly in adrenal and gonadal cells that produce a variety of structurally similar hormones regulating numerous body functions. The rate-limiting stage of steroidogenesis is cholesterol delivery to the inner mitochondrial membrane, where it is converted by cytochrome P450scc into pregnenolone, a common precursor of all steroid hormones. The major role of supplying mitochondria with cholesterol belongs to steroidogenic acute regulatory protein (STARD1). STARD1, which is synthesized de novo as a precursor containing mitochondrial localization sequence and sterol-binding domain, significantly accelerates cholesterol transport and production of pregnenolone. Despite a tremendous interest in STARD1 fueled by its involvement in hereditary diseases and extensive efforts of numerous laboratories worldwide, many aspects of STARD1 structure, functioning, and regulation remain obscure and debatable. This review presents current concepts on the structure of STARD1 and other lipid transfer proteins, the role of STARD1 in steroidogenesis, and the mechanism of its functioning, as well as identifies the most controversial and least studied questions related to the activity of this protein.
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7.
Stress-induced disturbances along the gut microbiota-immune-brain axis and implications for mental health: Does sex matter?
Audet, MC
Frontiers in neuroendocrinology. 2019;:100772
Abstract
Women are roughly twice as likely as men to suffer from stress-related disorders, especially major depression and generalized anxiety. Accumulating evidence suggest that microbes inhabiting the gastrointestinal tract (the gut microbiota) interact with the host brain and may play a key role in the pathogenesis of mental illnesses. Here, the possibility that sexually dimorphic alterations along the gut microbiota-immune-brain axis could play a role in promoting this female bias of mood and anxiety disorders will be discussed. This review will also analyze the idea that gut microbes and sex hormones influence each other, and that this reciprocal crosstalk may come to modulate inflammatory players along the gut microbiota-immune-brain axis and influence behavior in a sex-dependent way.
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8.
Steroid secretion in healthy aging.
Fiacco, S, Walther, A, Ehlert, U
Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2019;:64-78
Abstract
Nowadays, people spend a considerable amount of their lives as older adults, but this longer lifespan is often accompanied by an increase in chronic conditions and disease, resulting in reduced quality of life and unprecedented societal and economic burden. Healthy aging is therefore increasingly recognized as a healthcare priority. Physical and mental adaptations to changes over the life course, and the maintenance of well-being, represent pivotal challenges in healthy aging. To capture the complexity of healthy aging, we propose a specific phenotype based on body composition, cognition, mood, and sexual function as indicators of different dimensions of healthy aging. With increasing age, sex hormones as well as glucocorticoids undergo significant alterations, and different patterns emerge for women and men. This review describes age-related patterns of change for women and men, and sheds light on the underlying mechanisms. Furthermore, an overview is provided of the challenges for healthy aging resulting from these age-related steroid alterations. While clinical practice guidelines recommend hormonal treatment only in the case of consistently low hormone levels and symptoms of hormone deficiency, physical exercise and a healthy lifestyle emerge as preventive strategies which can counter age-related hormonal changes and at best prevent chronic conditions.
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9.
A decade in female reproduction: an endocrine view of the past and into the future.
Macut, D, Milutinović, DV, Rašić-Marković, A, Nestorov, J, Bjekić-Macut, J, Stanojlović, O
Hormones (Athens, Greece). 2018;(4):497-505
Abstract
Over the last decade, huge achievements have been made in the fields of neurophysiology, molecular endocrinology, and biochemistry, as well as in the successful translation of clinical research into diseases into clinical practice. As regards female reproduction, most of the advances made in this area were achieved in gonadal axis regulation, regulation of behavior through sex steroids, reproductive genetics, preservation of ovarian reproductive function, steroid profiling, and metabolic and overall reproductive outcomes. The coming years are expected to bring further understanding of the relationships between nutrition, energy metabolism, and reproductive function and to succeed in identifying new genetic markers linked to adverse metabolic and unfavorable cardiovascular outcomes in women. From our perspective, future research in the field of female reproduction should be directed toward doing research into genetic reproductive abnormalities and neuroendocrine diseases, pathophysiology, long-term health outcomes for oligo/amenorrhea, hyperandrogenism, and ovulatory dysfunction. It is additionally expected that a better understanding will be gained of the endocrinology of the placenta and of pregnancy, the role of the microbiome in female reproduction, the role of insulin sensitizers, anti-obesity and anti-diabetic drugs, and various advances in the prevention of ovarian damage caused by various oncology therapies, while new therapeutic options for the treatment of infertility, including kisspeptin, will be developed.
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10.
Sex differences, endogenous sex-hormone hormones, sex-hormone binding globulin, and exogenous disruptors in diabetes and related metabolic outcomes.
Liu, S, Sun, Q
Journal of diabetes. 2018;(6):428-441
Abstract
In assessing clinical and pathophysiological development of type 2 diabetes (T2D), the critical role of the sex steroids axis is underappreciated, particularly concerning the sex-specific relationships with many relevant cardiometabolic outcomes. In this issue of the Journal of Diabetes, we provide a comprehensive overview of these significant associations of germline variants in the genes governing the sex steroid pathways, plasma levels of steroid hormones, and sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) with T2D risk that have been observed in many clinical and high-quality large prospective cohorts of men and women across ethnic populations. Together, this body of evidence indicates that sex steroids and SHBG should be routinely incorporated into clinical characterization of T2D patients, particularly in screening prediabetic patients, such as those with metabolic syndrome, using plasma levels of SHBG. Given that several germline mutations in the SHBG gene have also been directly related to both plasma concentrations of SHBG and clinical manifestation of T2D, targeting signals in the sex steroid axis, particularly SHBG, may have significant utility in the prediction and treatment of T2D. Further, many of the environmental endocrine disrupting chemicals may exert their potential adverse effects on cardiometabolic outcomes via either estrogenic or androgenic signaling pathways, highlighting the importance of using the sex steroids and SHBG as important biochemical markers in both clinical and population studies in studying sex-specific mechanisms in the pathogenesis of T2D and its complications, as well as the need to equitably allocate resources in studying both men and women.